Hands on with Motorola's new Moto X

Motorola is bringing its Droids to all the networks that aren't Verizon, but the
company is concealing them in a different package. The new Moto X
is almost functionally identical to the Droids that were announced
recently, down to Motorola's new X8 "mobile system," camera app tweaks, and contextual
awareness.

But the Moto X not only works on more carriers, it comes in a
much more appealing body. In fact, Motorola's focus is almost
entirely on the package. The company seems to think it has
the internals and functionality down pat enough that it can apply
minimal alterations to Android and focus on the appearance. While
we can't quite agree with that premise, the Moto X does look and
feel pretty good.

The look of the phone from all sides is asymmetric from top to
bottom. The curvature of the back puts the bulk of the weight and
volume of the phone toward the top. But the asymmetry can only be
seen, not felt. The phone feels completely balanced and very nice
to hold. I found that the tip of my index finger tended to rest
right on the indentation of the Motorola logo while holding the
device.

The front cover of the phone is a glossy white or black plastic,
while the back is a softer plastic that covers a black or white
weave pattern. More colors will be available in certain
circumstances.

The micro-USB port is centred on the bottom of the phone, with
the volume rocker and sleep button on the right-hand side. Per the
design paradigms of the later versions of Android (Android 4.2.2,
in this case), there is no home button. But Motorola has worked out
a better approach than buttons: a contextual processor that uses
sensors to wake the screen when the phone is moved or flipped
over.

When the phone wakes up this way, it presents a handful of
notifications, the clock, and an unlock slider. You can get in to
the phone with no hardware interactions required. Not a
game-changer, but a nifty trick.

This feature worked nearly perfectly when I picked the phone up
from facing down on a table, but it only triggered sometimes if I
picked it up when it was facing up. To benefit from this setting,
I'd have to get in the habit of putting the phone face down on
different surfaces, which gives me moderate anxiety about the
screen touching or being scratched by damaging objects or
substances. The bezel is not raised in comparison to the screen,
which won't give you a whole lot of protection from putting it down
on unsavory surfaces.

The contextual processor also affords the same camera activation
gesture as the Droids. A few twists of the wrist will unlock
straight to the camera screen, where you tap on the screen to take
a photo or hold down for a burst mode.

Because of that processor and the phone's sensors, it's also
possible to access Google Now while the phone is asleep. The phrase
"OK Google Now" brings it to attention, and then speaking a command
will get the phone to execute it without requiring you to touch
anything. The phone does customise its responsiveness to your
voice, says Motorola, so in theory someone shouldn't be able to
cause mayhem by walking into a room full of Moto X phones and
saying "OK, Google Now, call John."

Setting up voice activation involved saying "OK Google Now"
three times in different cadences. The phone woke consistently, but
the commands are as good (read: middling) as they've ever been with
Google Now. If it doesn't understand a word, it ignores it and
doesn't ask for clarification. This sometimes leads to incomplete
commands.

Like the Droids, the Moto X has a Clear Pixel camera that
purportedly captures 75 percent more light than an RGB Bayer
sensor. Lacking the dimly lit bar and nighttime scenarios that
manufacturers are scrambling to account for with this emphasis on
low-light, we didn't have ample opportunity to test this.

But in the modestly dim shots we could take, the darker parts
still seemed fairly grainy. The Moto X also has an "auto" HDR
feature that seems to trigger when the phone figures it's a good
idea. Whether this is on, auto, or off can be toggled in
settings.

The big selling point of the Moto X over its Droid doppelgangers
is supposed to be its customisability. The Moto X will launch
concurrently with a site entitled Motomaker, which allows users to
customise the front, back, and color accents of their phone.
There's no price premium for this process, though it will only be
available at launch for AT&T customers. It will also be the
only source of a 32GB version of the phone (the stock version is
16GB).

Motorola pitches the Moto X as the "relaunch" of the mobile
division under the aegis of Google. But this constitutes the second
or third time Motorola has reinvented its mobile approach. This is
neither an Android flagship nor Google partner device. The company
is taking a different tack than the Verizon-exclusive, pseudo-macho
Droids it keeps iterating on. Ultimately, this phone does lack compelling hardware or software beyond a couple
of neat tweaks, so it's hard to say how it will capture the
attention of customers.

The Moto X will launch in the US at the end of August or
beginning of September depending on the carrier partner (Verizon,
AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, and US Cellular will all carry the
phone). The suggested price is $199.99 (£132) on a two-year
contract or $249.99 (£165) for the 32GB version offered through
Motomaker and AT&T.

This story originally appeared on ars technica. Click through for more images and a
video